CHAPTER II.

CONSECRATED PLACES.

Consecrated actions of various kinds being the primary method of approaching the beings in whose honor they are performed, there remain various secondary methods; sometimes tending to heighten the effect of the primary method, sometimes supplementing it. These secondary means of giving effect to the religious sentiment may be divided into three classes:—the consecration of places, of things, and of persons; while the last of these falls into two subdivisions: the self-dedication of certain individuals to their deity, and the dedication of a certain class to the more special performance of religious services on behalf of the community.

Consecration of places evidently confers on the actions performed within them a higher sanctity. Prayer offered in a place which has been devoted to the service of God is more likely to be successful. Praise from within its walls will be more acceptable. Wedlock contracted under its influence will be more solemn, and will possess a more binding character. Children may most fitly enter upon life by a profession of faith made in their behalf in a consecrated temple. And the bodies of the dead will rest more peacefully in consecrated earth.

It is scarcely needful to offer evidence of the fact that in various lands, and by many kinds of belief, the performance of certain ceremonies is held to consecrate places to the purpose of communication between man and the higher powers. From the savage in Sierra Leone, where "a small shed of dry leaves" presents perhaps the rudest form of temple to be found on earth (S. L., p. 65), to the European who worships his God in St. Peter's or Westminster Abbey, the same opinion prevails. Everywhere the consecration of places is conceived to render them fitter for the celebration of religious rites, and unfit for all profaner uses.

Of the state of feeling with which such localities are endowed by the ordinary worshiper, an excellent example is offered in Solomon's speech at the dedication of the temple. He specially requests Jehovah that when prayers are made to him in this place, or toward this place, he will hear such prayers: that is, he expects that the sanctity he will confer upon the temple, by devoting it to Jehovah, will add something to the efficacy of petitions in which it is in some way concerned. The manner in which he dedicates the temple may serve, too, as a type of this kind of ceremony. "Solomon," we are told, "offered a sacrifice of peace-offerings, which he offered unto the Lord, two-and-twenty thousand oxen, and an hundred and twenty thousand sheep." With this barbaric magnificence he "dedicated the house of the Lord," and he subsequently hallowed the middle of the court by "burnt-offerings, and meat-offerings, and the fat of the peace-offerings" (1 Kings viii). How great was the respect attached to this temple by the Israelites, and how anxiously they sought to guard it against such profanation as it received at the hands of Pompey, is well known.

The lavish splendor with which Solomon adorned his temple is a common feature of consecrated places. Like the ancient Hebrews, the Mexicans and Peruvians had buildings in honor of their gods, of extreme magnificence. The temple of Pachacamac, or the Creator, in Peru, was a very large and ancient building, richly decorated, which was found to contain an immense wealth of gold and silver vessels (H. I., b. v., chs. iii., xii). The boundless munificence with which pious Christians have sought to beautify their places of worship needs no description. Along with the more formal consecration given to such sanctuaries of the Most High by special rites, they have sought to render them more worthy of his habitation by the liberality displayed in their erection and embellishment.